15-16 July 2006 - Port Macquarie Uniting Church

Click on this link to see the
program
for the 'French Connection' concert.
The insert, with the text of the 'Gloria' and other program notes, is here.

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Francophiles were given a
great treat on the weekend of 15 and 16 July when the Hastings
Choristers choirs combined with Soprano Rose Wallin and trumpeter Jason Heise
in a concert series celebrating French music. The concerts were at the
Uniting Church, Oxley Highway, Port Macquarie at 2pm on Saturday 15
July and Sunday 16 July.

Cantorus is one of the
premier SATB choirs in Regional Australia and performed the
spectacular Gloria by Poulenc as well as a wide variety of other choral works
by French composers, including excerpts from Les Miserables, under the musical
direction of Robyn Ryan OAM. They were joined in the Gloria by talented
young soprano, Rose Wallin.

Rose Wallin was
until recently a fourth
year student at the Newcastle Conservatorium, majoring in voice. She has
worked with many local opera and dramatic societies, with roles including
Zerlina in Don Giovanni (Mozart) and The Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolour Dreamcoat (Lloyd Webber). She is now continuing her studies in
Germany.

Another highlight of the
concert was the performance of trumpeter Jason Heise with accompanist
Lydia Wills.

Jason began his musical
career at the age of eleven by joining the Kempsey District Silver Band and
then went on to join the prestigious Performing Arts Units Pacific Schools
Games Orchestra, and toured Europe with the Performing Arts Units All Star
Stage Band. He completed his Bachelor of Music with Honours in
2004 at the University of Newcastle and performs with the Sydney Symphony
Sinfonia and Australian Opera Ballet Orchestra.

His accompanist, Lydia
Wills, is a brilliant young pianist. She won the Peter Rorke Award for the
best undergraduate student in 2002 from the University of Southern
Queensland.